Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott provided his interim response to the Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program (HIP) in Parliament on 30 September, 2014. One should not expect much sustainable or cultural change from an interim response but Abbott’s responses hold some promise.
The commitments include:
“…[asking] Minister Hunt [Environment] to assume responsibility to oversee the Commonwealth response and to coordinate actions across departments and ministers.”
“…[asking] the Minister for Employment to examine these [OHS] findings, particularly as they relate to the reliance of the Commonwealth on state and territory laws, and his work will inform the government’s final response.”
“Minister Hunt and the Minister for Finance have been asked to recommend options to compensate their next of kin [of the deceased workers]“
“…[asking] the Attorney-General, the Minister for Industry and the Minister for Finance to develop options for a scheme that will compensate those pre-existing businesses that were adversely affected.”
“…[asked] Minister Hunt to recommend an external expert to examine and address the issues identified and the recommendations relating to the role of government in this tragic program. This expert will examine the role of ministers and officials in the development of policy and the delivery of programs to see what lessons can be learnt.”
It is perhaps reasonable for the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, to be given the task to coordinate the government’s formal response to the Royal Commission as the program existed under the Department of the Environment even though the failure stemmed from worker deaths and major misunderstandings of the basics of safety management.
It is somewhat ironic that Prime Minister Abbott announced the response to an inquiry into worker fatalities on the eve of Safe Work Australia month without mentioning the major month-long initiative. Missed opportunity there, one thinks.
The Minister for Employment, Eric Abetz, could be better used in establishing a program to educate ALL commonwealth public servants on the OHS legal structure in Australia and how policy decisions made in Canberra can affect people’s lives in the “real world”. This disconnect is not difficult to counter but could be reinforced by the application of Safety Impact Assessments if the government does not perceive such a process as unnecessary red tape. It may also help if the push for Safety In Design principles emphasised that Design incorporates policy development.
Minister Abetz is unlikely to propose any substantial change to safety laws as Australia seems fatigued by the prolonged and incomplete process of OHS harmonisation. He could tweak laws to emphasise the delineation between national and State OHS/WHS laws but the only people who seemed to struggle with the existing legal delineation were Environment Department bureaucrats who could (and should) have consulted with colleagues in the Department of Employment, Comcare or Safe Work Australia.
The response with most opportunity for improvement is the appointment of “an external expert” but this will depend on who is appointed. It should be someone with established OHS/WHS credentials, probably with a legal background, who understands the workings and culture of the Canberra bureaucracy but who is detached from that bureaucracy.
It seems that the political point scoring anticipated by the Prime Minister in establishing the Royal Commission has finally dissipated. In Parliament Prime Minster Abbott stressed:
“…. that this is not a witch hunt but we do need to recognise that the Home Insulation Program was a tragic failure, a failure of bureaucracy and a workplace failure as well as a political failure. All of us should learn from this failure because there will be times in the future when governments believe that urgent action is required—but even urgent action has to be prudent, cautious and wise.”
These “learnings”, whatever they may be, could be significant IF the government is genuinely committed to long-term reform in how a bureaucracy can provide “fearless and frank advice” on OHS matters to its political masters. The deaths of insulation installers may have occurred in “domestic workplaces” but the core element of neglect and ineptitude was in Canberra. It is there that the change is most needed.
